The trials, tribulations and trivialities of a triumphant triathlete in training.

Friday, May 15, 2015

The Double Decker Endurance Challenge or How Not to Drown and Die an Awful and Terribly Painful Death

I’m staring upwards as I run, four solid floors of concrete
agony looming above. I’ve already ascended and descended these monsters twice
and now I have two more to go. My legs are screaming, my lungs burn, my ribs
feel like they’re going to crack with the heaving of my strained diaphragm and
I might pass out.

This is the Double Decker Endurance Challenge, and I’m
almost done.

As in done for, like, in the cowboy at high noon sense of
endings.

Yup, that pretty much sums it up.

Two weeks before this fatal moment I saw the ad for an
endurance event; something unique that appealed to the masochist in me. It
consisted of a five-kilometer run, then a 300-meter swim, and finished off with
another 1.5 kilometers of running that included four ascents of the nearby
parking garages. 540 steps in total.

It sounded simple enough, and I was craving something
triathlon-esque. I had not suffered through a triathlon in almost eight months
and Char hadn’t endured the misery and joy in over a year. Time to get our pain
and suffering on.

There was no time to train, but we’d faithfully kept up our
weekly swim sessions so I knew I probably wouldn’t drown. Probably.

Stole the picture, sorry.

Months ago I had been running a local route, almost weekly,
that included an incredible stair case climb on ancient stone steps, followed
immediately by more than a quarter mile up a steep 12% grade to a classic
church overlooking the city of Vicenza.

Gorgeous, once you’re at the top.

Brutal, on your way up.

It had been a couple months, but I thought I still had it in
me to face the unforgiving brutality of the stair climb. What I wasn’t sure
about, and truly intimidated by, was the 300-meter swim immediately following
the 5k.

I’m always a little afraid of the swim portion of a
triathlon. But always before I have time to prepare myself, to warm up
specifically and to prepare my gear for the swim. This time I would be
sprinting into the transition area, sweating, gasping, and trying to shed shoes
and glasses while pulling on goggles and nose plug. I would already be at least
a little out of breath when I started the swim. With my history of breathing
issues in the water (no gills on this guy) this did not bode well for my
survival.

The start zone alone was intimidating, Char and I gauging
the competition and trying to predict where we’d fall in the pack. Everyone
seemed to know each other, and talked about their training and expectations.
Char and I were the outsiders, and the only ones that seemed unfamiliar with
what was about to happen. There were only six women at the start, so Char
wasn’t too challenged to pick out her place. I had a much harder time. Every
dude there looked like he could eat me for breakfast and then run circles
around the leftovers. I’m not sure what that means, but it sounds intimidating.

Less intimidating.

Once the gun went off, Char and I paced ourselves
deliberately for the first 5k. We thought we could save just enough energy to
make the swim less painful. Ripping off slightly sweaty shoes and pulling on
goggles was a disorienting experience, but the cool water felt great and my
body was already warmed up and ready to go. I had to fight a nasty leak in the
first length of the pool, but there wasn’t much to complain about after that.
Because of the training and previous experiences, I felt no panic in the pool,
even while some of the other swimmers decided to head the wrong way and I
narrowly avoided several head-on collisions. I had decided to wear my triathlon
top, based on the results of a brief social media poll that indicated it would
be more aerodynamic and less revolting if I kept a shirt on. Surprisingly, it
provided very little drag, and probably was more streamlined based on a brief
test I ran in the pool a week later.

Sprint to the finish, no mercy!

Coming out of the pool placed me back in my element. I had
lost only a little time in the pool and began running down the pack immediately
in front of me. I paced them on the first set up stairs, but gained
considerable ground on the descent. (I tried a risky but rewarding tactic of
skipping every other step, even on the way down which required strict focus
even while exhausted) By the second set of stairs I was passing other runners
and by the time I finished the fourth I was almost alone. There was a single
and final runner that I was able to pass sometime in the last half mile.

I had just enough recovery time to pull on a dry shirt, and
pull off my now soaking shoes, before Char arrived at the finish line. My own
time was not enough to place in my age group but Char proudly stepped forward
in the awards ceremony to receive her second place award. Beast.

You can't argue with awesome.

What had sounded like a good idea weeks before, then
transformed into a physical nightmare halfway through, ended with a definite
sense of accomplishment and triumph. We had both come to face the challenge
with different fears and goals and emerged with our own victories, Char with a
medal and me with my life.

Win.

And then we celebrated the only way we knew how. With food.

Baked gnocchi from a local restaurant, Mexico '86, named after a fateful World Cup game.